Patio Pillows

DIY Outdoor Patio Pillows

 

Outdoor Pillows

It was about time we decided to set up a patio table on the deck outside our bedroom. And pillows were the most exciting part! It was actually my first project that I had planned, even before we moved from the old house. I had bought fabric weeks before we even moved. Call me crazy, but it was my #1 project idea since May.

There are so many fun and funky patterns of outdoor fabric, why would you buy them from the store? And I think they’re a little overpriced if you buy them from a Target or Home Goods. So I headed to Joanne.com to find a few patterns I liked. Luckily there were many! And a few cute ones in-store too. They were even all 40% off! All I needed to do was buy some stuffing and I used my sewing machine to do the rest.

Mix’n & Match’n

 

outdoor fabric

Here’s what I found on my first round of shopping in Joanne.

outdoor pillow patterns

 

In love with the geometric one.

Mix 'n' Match

 

I ordered these three on Joanne.com.

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Nontoxic Deodorant

DIY nontoxic deodorant easy

 

Alright, we’re about to get personal here and talk about something you (probably) use every day. Something that gets all up in your business. Something you may be uncomfortable talking about: Deodorant.

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Greeting Card Wall Art

poster-header

 

We got so many nice and beautiful cards from you guys, we couldn’t let them go to waste or hide them in a box for all of eternity. They needed to be displayed! And displayed they shall be.

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House Warming Open House

House Warming Open House Header

Thanks

to everyone who came up to our house warming. It was so nice to have you at the same place, at the same time. Marissa took some great photos below. Visit her website 🙂

bag toss and volleyball

backyard cornhole

Glad our bag toss game got some use.

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House Crush

House Crush Header

We have a total crush on this house. Guilty as charged. Joe’s long-time family friends bought a rambler in St. Louis Park Minnesota and completely gutted and remodeled it. The work is amazing! So much attention to detail. The 3,000 or so square foot space feels way more spacious on the inside than expected. That’s how so many rambler renovations seem to be lately. If there’s one word I could use to describe this house it’s “details”. We’ve been there a total of twice now, and took the opportunity to sneak a few pics. 😉 Thanks guys!

Tour Time

Entry Way

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5 Tips for Staging your House

setting the stage banner

5 Tips for Staging your House

If you’re in the midst of trying to sell your house, you know how stressful it can be. But if you follow some of these basic tips, it doesn’t have to be hard.

  1. Get help – A staging person has a great eye and experience. When in doubt, have someone walk through your house and uncover your blind spots. Many realtors offer to include this for free and have connections in the industry who consistently stage houses that sell.
  2. Borrow – Ask friends and family for select pieces of furniture before footing a bill on new things. Thrift shops and consignment stores can be your best friend.
  3. Keep it simple – Neutral paint colors, sparse furniture and minimalistic decorations are the name of the game. Clean, clean, clean! I could say it again. It makes such a difference. People like to envision what they could do to a space, not see that someone’s living there.
  4. Storage – Invest in a storage unit, or rely on friends and family to hide away your clutter. Nobody wants to walk into the garage and see mountains of odds and ends. On that note, hide away anything that is valuable to you. If someone makes an offer, they may ask for you to leave that favorite rug or those expensive pillows behind in order to seal the deal.
  5. Breathe  – This is a process with lots of moving pieces. Get yourself a good team and do what you can to best prepare your home for showings. After that, let go and trust that things will work out. It’s important to get good sleep during this transition and eat healthy (even if you’re not able to use your kitchen.) It can feel chaotic, but it will all be worth it once you get a happy buyer for your house 🙂

 

Stage Presence

Here’s how we did it. We were pretty confident in our staging abilities, and guess what? We didn’t do too bad! When Barb the professional came in, we didn’t have a whole lot to change. Mainly this is because we had already cleansed the premises and shipped all our possessions off to various garages.

If you’re currently trying to stage your home, you don’t necessarily need to hire a professional staging person. Although, you may find it helpful. Luckily Joe’s parents had some furniture to lend us and his mom got to be the personal shopper for staging. I’ll try to give as many details as I can.

 

staging layout drawing

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Lemon Coconut Muffin Bars

Lemon Coconut Muffin Bars Recipe

Happy Easter, Happy Spring

I found this recipe in our staging cookbook that we used for house showing decor. It’s the Better Homes and Gardens annual recipes 2003 cookbook. We picked it purely for the colors and photos, but hey, I’ve already made two recipes from it! I put a different spin on it to serve up for Sunday. Easter has always been my favorite holiday, and I’m so excited! If you’re looking for a good spring recipe, I would highly recommend this one. (Unless we’re going to the same family function.) It’s fairly easy, and there’s even a surprise filling inside. Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients

List of Ingredients

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Behind the Scenes

Spring Cleaning

 

Elbow Grease

It was truly March Madness for us – A month for the record books. We put an offer on a house, had it contingently accepted, had to make a mad dash to sell a house, and a bunch of aftermath that we’re currently weeding through. There were many, many things that needed to take place in order for everything to fall exactly into place. There was probably some divine intervention, because whatever took place was of superhuman effort. Good thing we know some pretty super humans 🙂

This is a sampling of what we needed to do. The majority of our work was taping, mudding, prepping walls, painting walls, shampooing carpet, getting everything into boxes and out of the house, repainting coats of paint and generally polishing and deep cleaning every square inch. Joe’s house cleaned up pretty nicely! But few of us got to be behind the scenes. Lemme tell you, it wasn’t so pretty. But it was all worth it in the end.

To-Do Lists

to-do list page 1

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House is Sold

sold sign

 

It’s (Almost) Official

The Sign Santa finally came around and left us a little present in the front yard. Just in time to update it to “SOLD” – Joe accepted an offer!

 

Joe signing house offer

He was SO happy to hear it.

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Total Transformation

Under Construction

It’s been a whirlwind week! From finding a dream house to making an offer. Having the offer accepted to putting Joe’s house on the market… Wow. There was so much work put into his house, I can’t even believe it all started only one week ago. All I can say is THANK YOU to everyone who came over to move a truckload of boxes, shampoo the carpet, paint a room or jump on deep clean duty. We would have never been able to make that kind of progress alone. You were unconditionally there for us when we needed you.

Pulling Back the Curtain

shower curtain

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